Sempiternal
by half agony and hope
Summary: (adjective: eternal and unchanging, everlasting) "'Sempiternal,' she whispers. 'The word you're looking for is sempiternal.' He grins. 'And I've found it.'" Post Blue Bird.


**AN: Thanks for the overwhelming response to the final chapter of _When_ _I Fall_. That story was my first ever to get over 100 reviews, so as a thank you to you all, I'm celebrating with a Blue Bird post-ep. This was requested by a guest reviewer, who was absolutely right in saying that our fandom can never have too many of these! At any rate, I hope you all enjoy it.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own The Mentalist.**

* * *

Sempiternal

 _adjective: eternal and unchanging, everlasting_

She feels his fingers under her chin shake.

It's hardly noticeable, but it's there, a slight tremor that gives him away. _He's nervous_ , she realizes belatedly. _He's actually nervous._

If she weren't so busy kissing him senseless, she'd roll her eyes at him.

Like he had anything to be anxious about. Like she would have refused him.

After a declaration like that, what kind of woman could?

Lisbon pulls back slightly, wanting to see his face, needing to get some kind of read on him. As her lips leave his, she feels the beginnings of a smile form on his face. She needs no more encouragement, and she opens her eyes to meet his.

She can't stop the smile which she returns to him.

The effect her expression has on him is instantaneous—laugh lines appear on his forehead and at the corners of his eyes, and his grin nearly forces his eyes shut. His hand on her shakes again, and this time she does roll her eyes at him.

"You're an idiot," she tells him.

"I know," he says, but he's still smiling so she figures she hasn't wounded him too badly.

However, at that moment the blood drains from his face and he drops his hands to the table to steady himself, and Lisbon is reminded that though his ego may not be wounded, his ankle definitely is. She stands up, pushing her chair away from her, and reaches out for him, her hands coming to rest on his upper arms.

The reprimanding look she gives him is entirely too natural.

"You should be sitting down," she says.

His response is automatic. "You weren't complaining about that a minute ago."

She blushes fiercely and looks away, and her hair falls in front of her face as she moves around the table, still holding onto Jane to keep him steady. He turns around to face the observation window, leaning against the table and following her movements as she comes to stand in front of him. Lisbon can't seem to meet his eyes.

Slowly, he lifts one of his hands to once again touch his fingers under her chin, forcing her gaze upwards.

She's the one who shakes this time.

Her gaze is questioning and longing and confused and a million other emotions she doesn't care to name, but his is sure.

"We're quite a pair, aren't we?" he says quietly.

Lisbon presses her lips together but can't stop the soft burst of laughter that bubbles up inside her. She lifts a hand up tentatively to brush an errant blonde curl back into place.

"Well," she says, "if you're not planning on taking your weight off that ankle, you might as well make yourself useful. Come on." She moves her arm behind him to rest on his lower back and uses her free hand to position his left arm across her shoulders. "It was all Abbott could do to prevent you from being prohibited to fly—there's no chance Miami TSA will be feeling generous enough towards you to lend you a pair of crutches."

She starts to take a step towards the door, but Jane pulls her back.

"Abbott kept me off the no-fly list?"

"Though I can't imagine why," Lisbon quips. "If I were him, I'd want to make you pay for all the stunts you've pulled recently." She looks up at him with a twisted smile, making it clear that she's not actually upset with him. "He _did_ have to promise that you would be chaperoned on all future flights by an FBI agent."

Jane rolls his eyes in exasperation, throwing his head back slightly for added effect. "'Chaperoned'?" he says. "Really, Lisbon, I have to be chaperoned? The FBI might as well put a leash and collar on me and call me their lapdog."

She leans in, tilting her face up so that their noses are nearly touching.

"Oh, I intend to."

He reads her in a split-second and chuckles softly. " _You're_ my chaperone, Lisbon? Well played. How did you arrange that?"

She tightens her hold around his waist. "It wasn't difficult. Nobody wanted to deal with a sulking Patrick Jane in the confined cabin of a plane for three hours. You should have seen the look of relief on Abbott's face when I showed up."

Jane's eyes flash to the observation window as if expecting to find Abbott behind it, arms crossed and a surly look on his face. "Where _is_ Abbott?"

"He should be boarding right about now," says Lisbon. "Cho and Fischer are tying up loose ends and probably won't be able to fly back until tomorrow. And _our_ flight leaves in—"

Lisbon checks her watch, which swims blearily before her tired eyes.

"—an hour and fifteen minutes," she finishes. "Are you ready to head back to Austin?"

"I sure am," he replies, and together they walk out of the holding room, Lisbon supporting his weight.

* * *

An hour later, they board the plane together but head to their respective seats. Lisbon takes a moment to mourn the fact that adjacent seats had not been available at the last minute, but she decides a little separation from Jane might not be entirely a bad thing.

She needs time to sort this all out.

But instead of sorting, all she manages to do is worry. Her stomach twists in knots, in part due to the turbulence on the takeoff but mostly because of her uncertainty.

Have they just destroyed a decade-long friendship?

Her anxiety uses up her last reserves of energy, and she is asleep before they reach cruising altitude.

* * *

Lisbon is jolted out of a dreamless sleep as the plane descends. For a second, her body urges her to close her eyes again, but then she blinks and catches a glimpse of blonde curls three rows in front of her, and his confession and their subsequent conversation in the holding room come flooding back to her.

She is suddenly wide awake.

After the plane is done taxiing and its passengers have started to disembark, Jane waits for her. When she reaches his row, he slips into the aisle behind her and catches her hand.

She hitches her purse further up on her shoulder and leads them out of the plane.

* * *

Once they've entered the airport proper, she gets her first real look at him in over three hours. Though exhaustion still emanates from him, he appears to have gotten a bit of sleep on the plane, if the new crinkles in his island shirt are anything to go by. He still leans heavily on her as they make their way past the gates to exit the terminal. It occurs to her that she is his literal crutch, and it seems a rather fitting analogy.

"When do we have to be back at work?" he asks as they make their way to the taxis.

She snorts. " _I've_ been given two weeks of leave to get my life shipped back to Austin," she says. " _You've_ been given two weeks of suspension."

"Ahhh," says Jane knowingly. "Abbott always struck me as the hopeless romantic type."

She elbows him lightly, an easy feat due to their proximity. "You did not just imply that Abbott gave us two weeks off to celebrate our relationship."

"Imply what you wish," is his only response.

They get into the taxi soon after, and she is relieved when Jane gives the driver his address rather than hers. She can't face unpacking the mound of boxes at her house on so little sleep.

Lisbon finds herself falling in and out of sleep on Jane's shoulder on the ride to the Airstream. Every so often she feels him kiss her hair or trail his fingertips up her arm, as if to assure himself that she is really there, that she hasn't left him.

If she's being honest with herself, she finds she needs the assurance as well.

* * *

They literally fall into bed once they reach the Airstream and sleep soundly for another couple hours. Lisbon wakes as Jane shifts beside her, throwing one muscular arm over her chest and pulling her to him instinctually. She turns her head towards him.

She's seen Jane sleep before but never like this, she realizes. His normally precisely-styled hair is all over the place, sticking up every which way, and his beard is scruffy, like he has forgotten to shave for a few days. But despite all that, she's never seen him so peaceful, so relaxed, and she is overcome by the desire to see his eyes light up again.

She kisses him, the barest touch of her lips against his.

He hums and pulls her closer, and when his nose touches her neck, she shivers in his arms.

"Feel free to wake me up like that every morning," he says, and his voice is lazy and low with sleep.

"I'd like to point out that it's not actually morning anymore," says Lisbon teasingly, and, indeed, the sunlight streaming through the window behind him argues for early afternoon.

"Well, in that case, feel free to do that any time you like." He opens his eyes, and she reaches out to touch his face, her fingertips treading lightly across his nose, his forehead, his lips.

"Hey," she says.

"Hi," he says, and she is reminded of their conversation in the holding room.

His eyes rove over her face, and his brows knit together. "What are you thinking?"

She smiles slightly. "You can't tell?"

It isn't often Jane isn't able to read her.

He blinks. "I've been having a harder time reading you…lately."

"Why is that?"

"I have a couple of theories."

She raises her eyebrows at him, and he continues.

"The most likely being that when I came back from South America, I realized something between us had changed. Things had always been personal, but they became even more so. I…I have a difficult time distancing myself enough from you now to get a good read." He pauses but continues after a second. "When things get personal, I get insecure. And when I'm insecure, I'm never confident that I know what you're thinking."

"I'm glad. That puts us on even playing field for once."

"Oh, it's never been an even playing field, Teresa. You've always had far more pull over me than I had over you."

She doesn't know what to say to that—or even if there's _anything_ to say to that—so she decides to answer his earlier question.

"I was thinking…" she begins nervously, not able to hold his gaze, and then she hurries on, because once the words begin to tumble out she can't stop them. "I want to know…what this is to you. I mean, I know it's early, and maybe we shouldn't be having this conversation at all yet. But I just broke up with a really good man who was offering me a stable life…and I just want to know that I didn't sacrifice that for something with you that will burn out faster than a flame in a thunderstorm."

She can feel him looking at her, forming his answer, and she is content to wait.

"The truth," he says, "is that I don't really know what this is. However, I do know that I love you—and that this is it for me. I have no desire to let this sputter out like, as you so eloquently put it, a flame in a thunderstorm. I'm aiming for eternal rather than ephemeral."

Lisbon looks at him again, and it hits her that despite their differences, despite their pasts, and despite everything that life has thrown at them, their goals for their blossoming relationship are remarkably similar. She thinks of the devotion Jane has shown for his late wife—even after ten years—and is overwhelmed by the thought that, now, his devotion will be extended to her.

"Sempiternal," she whispers. "The word you're looking for is sempiternal."

He grins. "And I've found it."


End file.
